Getting Back Brahms

by Mavis Cheek

Cheek, Mavis

Genres: Humor, Fiction

334 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

Born in Wimbledon, now part of London, Mavis left school at 16 to do office work with Editions Alecto, a Kensington publishing company. She later moved to the firm's gallery in Albemarle Street, where she met artists such as David Hockney, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield and Gillian Ayres. In 1969 she married a "childhood sweetheart", Chris Cheek, a physicist, whom she had met at a meeting of the Young Communist League in New Malden, but they separated three years later. Later she lived for eleven years with the artist Basil Beattie. She returned to education in 1976, doing a two-year arts course at Hillcroft College, a further education college for women.

Although Cheek had planned to take a degree course, she turned instead to fiction writing while her daughter, Bella Beattie, was a child. She moved from London to Aldbourne in the Wiltshire countryside in 2003, but as she explained to a newspaper, "Life in the city was a comparative breeze. Life in the country is tough, a little bit dangerous and not for wimps."

Cheek has been involved with the Marlborough LitFest, and also teaches creative writing. This has included voluntary work at Holloway and Erlstoke prisons. As she described in an article: "What I see [at Erlstoke] is reflected in my own experience. Bright, overlooked, unconfident men who are suddenly given the opportunity to learn grow wings, and dare to fail. It helps to be able to tell them that I, too, was once designated thick by a very silly [education] system. My prisoners have written some brilliant stuff, and perhaps it gives them back some self-esteem."

Reviews

[Liz]

Not one of her better ones.

[Karen]

Urrgghhh, another post-break-up female lead character who failed to give me any inspiration. Mind you, Diana and, in fact, the whole book really suffered by comparison to its predecessor. While Penelope Fitzgerald's Nenna in Offshore was no role model, she was at least sensitively written, nuanced and sympathetic. This was a pretty crude caricature of, well, almost everyone and had a nasty core of rotten bitterness throughout.

[Ria]

Really enjoyed this, good if you are in the mood for a light hearted read, hilarious in parts but also well written so you feel empathy for the main characters. Well worth reading.

[Louise Culmer]

Thirty year old Diana is miserable because her boyfriend has dumped her for someone else. She can no longe bear to listen to the Brahms Requiem because it reminds her of him, but hopes that if she can get over him she can enjoy Brahms again, hence the title. She decides to try being a lesbian, but that is not very succesful, then she gets an opportunity to teach creative writing to an attractive young gardener whom she hopes to seduce, while dealing with a lot of eccentric characters. I found this one more amusing than most of mavis Cheek’s other books because it is more pure comedy and she doesn’t try and get you to sympathise with the characters. Quite fun.

[Ingrid Stahl-McMullan]

A French chef asks - where is the sauce? I would like to ask - and the story?

[Christinekthornton]

Re-reading Mavis Cheek and this is her on top form. As always, well-written and very funny with loads of literary jokes and with a lovable heroine— no saint and portrayed unvarnished

[Shobha]

didn't like. it took me 2 weeks to finally get this book finished, i don't know how many times i put it down. its so funnily written in some places and so badly in other places. IMO no flow and one rarely knows whats going on.

[Hilary]

Although I have enjoyed other books by Mavis Cheek the humour in this one seems to be straining for effect. It reads more like a series of stand-up one-liners than carefully constructed humorous situations. Disappointing. I did not finish it.

[Alison]

did not finsih this -

[Sueb]

Only read 3 chapters as was boring, and didn't start a story

[Norah]

Got side tracked and didn't finish it.

[Shannon Hampton]

This is a quite frivolous book and a quick read. Not to say that it wasn't good, just a beach read.

[Teresa D]

Not the best I have read of Mavis Cheek.

[Nyambura]

The number of times I was stared at in the train/bus; ha ha.

Not great, but great fun :)